Smart city
A smart city is an urban model that leverages technology, human capital, and governance to improve sustainability, efficiency, and social inclusion, which are considered goals for cities of the future. Smart cities use digital technology to collect data and operate services. Data is collected from citizens, devices, buildings, or cameras. Smart city applications are diverse and include, but are not limited to, traffic and transportation systems, power plants, utilities, urban forestry, water supply networks, waste disposal, criminal investigations, information systems, schools, libraries, hospitals, and other community services. The foundation of a smart city is built on the integration of people, technology, and processes, which connect and interact across sectors such as healthcare, transportation, education, infrastructure, etc. Smart cities are characterized by the ways in which their local governments monitor, analyze, plan, and govern the city. In a smart city, data sharing extends to businesses, citizens, and other third parties who can derive benefit from using that data. The three largest sources of spending associated with smart cities as of 2022 were visual surveillance, public transit, and outdoor lighting.
Smart cities integrate Information and Communication Technologies, and devices connected to the Internet of Things network to optimize city services and connect to citizens. ICT can enhance the quality, performance, and interactivity of urban services, reduce costs and resource consumption, and to increase contact between citizens and government. Smart city applications manage urban flows and allow for real-time responses. A smart city may be more prepared to respond to challenges than one with a conventional "transactional" relationship with its citizens. Yet, the term is open to many interpretations. Many cities have already adopted some sort of smart city technology.
Smart city initiatives have been criticized as driven by corporations, poorly adapted to residents' needs, as largely unsuccessful, and as a move toward totalitarian surveillance.
Background
Historically, cities functioned as centers of innovation, and the advent of the digital era presented opportunities and challenges to apply technology to create urban environments that are more efficient, sustainable, and livable.The shift to smart cities necessitates a comprehensive restructuring of city management and operations, leading citizen participation, and methods of public service delivery.
Cities seek to upgrade their infrastructure and service delivery to promote social inclusion, technological adoption, and economic development.
The transformation into a smart city involves modifications in planning, management, and operational processes. This data can subsequently be analyzed to identify areas for improvement and optimize urban services.
Information and communication technologies
The concept of smart cities emerged from global cities' adoption of information and communications technologies.ICTs present challenges given financial limitations, technical obstacles, and privacy and security concerns. ICTs are also not uniformly accessible across communities, contributing to the digital divide.
Definition
No commonly accepted definition of "smart city" has emerged. Evaluating smart city initiatives is difficult without agreement on parameters. It also hampers the ability to compare projects and identify best practices.Deakin and Al Waer list four factors that contribute to the definition of a smart city:
- Application of a wide range of electronic and digital technologies
- Use of ICT in living and working environments
- Use of ICT in government systems
- The territorialisation of practices that bring ICT and people together to enhance innovation and knowledge.
Early definitions
Notable disparities among smart city definitions include the relative focus on economic advantages versus environmental or social benefits and specific technology choices.Smart city definitions include:
- Caragliu et al. : "A city is smart when investments in human and social capital and traditional and modern communication infrastructure fuel sustainable economic growth and a high quality of life, with a wise management of natural resources, through participatory governance."
- Bakici, Almirall, & Wareham : "Smart city as a high-tech intensive and advanced city that connects people, information, and city elements using new technologies in order to create a sustainable, greener city, competitive and innovative commerce, and an increased life quality."
- Nam and Pardo : "A smart city infuses information into its physical infrastructure to improve conveniences, facilitate mobility, add efficiencies, conserve energy, improve the quality of air and water, identify problems and fix them quickly, recover rapidly from disasters, collect data to make better decisions, deploy resources effectively, and share data to enable collaboration across entities and domains."
Research
- Absence of intellectual exchange among researchers;
- Researcher inclination to pursue subjective avenues of research in isolation from their peers;
- The resulting division within the scientific community.
Motivations
Population growth
An important motivation for smart cities is projected population growth. The UN forecasts the global population to reach 9.6 to 13.2 billion by 2100, with cities absorbing 80% of this growth.Tragedy of the commons
An important goal of smart city initiatives is to use ICTs to address the tragedy of the commons problem. This phenomenon occurs when individuals acting in their own self-interest deplete a communal resource. For example, while each individual driver in a city saves time and flexibility by driving, the resultant excessive driving of the community causes traffic congestion and environmental issues. This situation is worsened when public transportation services get little attention due to the use of personal vehicles.History
Philosophical predecessors of smart cities can be found in utopian works such as New Atlantis. Another was Ebenezer Howard's 1898 concept of Garden Cities. These were dense, size-limited cities founded in rural areas by private groups, combining the benefits of the city and the country. Other conceptions include those of Edward Bellamy, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier. Critics of smart cities draw parallels between the weaknesses of these utopian visions and the weaknesses of smart cities today.The concept of "smart cities" emerged from global cities' adoption of information and communications technologies for urban use, which can be used to improve efficiency, sustainability, and livability in urban environments. Some of the earliest interventions in urban planning include the use of computational statistical analysis by the Community Analysis Bureau in Los Angeles in the late 1960s and the establishment by Singapore of the National Computer Board in 1981.
The smart city concept experienced a major surge around 2005. Tech companies sought to create information systems to enhance operational efficiency for cities.
A global movement emerged advocating smart cities.
IBM launched its Smarter Planet marketing initiative in 2008, which included the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge. In 2010, Cisco Systems, with $25 million from the Clinton Foundation, established its Connected Urban Development program in partnership with San Francisco, Amsterdam, and Seoul. In 2011, the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona attracted 6000 people from 50 countries. The European Commission in 2012 established the Smart Cities Marketplace, a centralized hub for urban initiatives in the European Union. The 2015 Chancellor's Budget for the United Kingdom proposed to invest £140 million in smart cities and IoT. Smart city competitions were launched in the 2010s by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the United States Department of Transportation. In 2016, AT&T launched an alliance with Cisco, Deloitte, Ericsson, General Electric, IBM, Intel, and Qualcomm, with municipal partners Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; and Dallas, Texas.
Characteristics
Key characteristics that define innovative urban environments include:- Connectivity: IOT networks collect and transmit data from sensors throughout the urban environment.
- Data-driven decision making: Advanced analytics and artificial intelligence enable more informed and responsive governance.
- Sustainable infrastructure: Energy-efficient buildings, renewable energy, and intelligent transportation systems.
- Urban Optimization: Reduce resource usage, reduce ecological footprints, and enhance living standards to create more environmentally responsible urban spaces.
- Citizen engagement: Facilitate communication between residents and government, promoting participation in urban planning and decision-making processes.
- Smart mobility: Integrate public transit, bike-sharing, and autonomous vehicles, aim to reduce congestion and improve accessibility, as well as analyzing mobility behavioral patterns of citizens to improve services and optimize the city infrastructure.
- Enhanced public services: Improve the delivery of essential services.
- Science parks and smart campuses;
- Innovation districts;
- Smart neighborhoods;
- City-wide, metropolitan and city-regional smart city initiatives;
- Urban platforms;
- Alternative smart city spaces.